Congratulations to Patricia Donovan-Hopkins, 4th grade teacher at Columbia Valley Gardens Elementary School in Kalama, WA, Longview School District. She was awarded a $500 scholarship by Brenda Miller, NWPE Regional Director and Lori Porter, NWPE Board Member, at a staff meeting on January 10, 2018. She will use the scholarship to attend the "Learning and the Brain" conference in New York City, April 19-21, 2018. The focus of the conference is "The Science of Stress."

Congratulations to Ms. Christine Poulsen, fourth grade at Kershaw Intermediate School in the Sugar Salem School District in Idaho. She has been awarded nearly $500 to purchase materials to incorporate hands on activities for teaching the revised set of Next Generation Science Standards. The diverse materials will benefit almost 110 fourth grade students in four classrooms.

Congratulations to Ms. Lee Cornell, teacher of Technology, Filmmaking, and Discovering Cultures and Languages at Victory Middle School in the West Ada School District, Meridian, ID. Ms. Cornell has been awarded a $500 scholarship to attend the Northwest Council for Computer Education to be held in Seattle, WA, Feb 14-16, 2018. The award was presented by Brenda Miller, NWPE regional director.

Congratulations to Ms. Tracy Son, sixth grade teacher at Lowell Scott Middle School in the West Ada School District in Idaho,. Ms. Son was awarded a $500 NWPE classroom grant to purchase resources to help her teach Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) related to Earth Science. She notes that, “Students in sixth grade are very visual and hands-on. Adding to my classroom resources will aid in the visual and hands-on learning of my students while reinforcing the 3-D teaching methods of NGSS.”

Congratulations to Mr. Robert McMichael, NWPE member and high school teacher in Cambridge, Idaho, who has been awarded a $500 classroom grant to help cover the costs of printing the third book researched and written by students. McMichael’s students’ first book was a general look at the history and culture of their unique valley in rural Idaho. The second was an oral history of "old-timers" from their area. The book that students are now working on will be a detailed explanation of agriculture in the Salubria Valley. In it, his 9th & 10th grade students will explain the “how and why of agriculture in the valley so that outsiders can better understand what makes small rural communities like theirs tick.”

Mr. Hank Norquist, NWPE member and middle school science teacher from Chehalis, WA, shares the following experience with his teacher union involvement:

During the summer of 2003, while I was an active, dues paying member of the Chehalis Education Association (CEA) and WEA, I expressed a desire to run for the local vice president position. Several CEA officers suggested that I attend the WEA-sponsored “How to be an Effective President” course.& I agreed and attended a week long course that included grievance representation. The presenter was a lawyer from a bank of about a dozen WEA attorneys.

Congratulations to Becky Mitchell, Idaho’s new Teacher of the Year!! Mrs. Mitchell is an NWPE member and teacher at Vision Charter School. She has taught high school English and Physical Sciences at the Caldwell, ID, school for the past eight years. Her depth of experience which spans a couple decades in the classroom includes teaching everything from Spanish to kindergartners to chemistry at the community college.

Culinary Arts Instructor Debra Guinn, an NWPE member who teaches in Idaho's Nampa School District, was named Secondary Teacher of the Year by the Career Technical Educators of Idaho (CTEI).

This statewide award recognizes the finest career and technical teachers at the middle and secondary school level who have demonstrated innovation in the classroom, commitment to their students and dedication to the improvement of CTE in their institutions and communities.

Congratulations to Nerissa Armstrong who receives a $500 NWPE Scholarship to attend the 2017 National Council for the Social Studies Conference in San Francisco next fall. Ms. Armstrong is a Meridian Middle School teacher of World Civilizations in the West Ada School District in Meridian, Idaho.

Congratulations to Ms. Emily Ball, 3rd and 4th grade Language Arts, Science, Social Studies teacher at the Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, Idaho! She has been awarded a $500 grant to enhance her Engage New York curriculum. She will use the funds to purchase additional books which will help her students develop their fluency, comprehension, and reading stamina skills through hands-on reading practice.

Congratulations to Taylor Warren, 4th grade teacher at Endeavor Elementary in the Nampa School District, Nampa, Idaho, who was awarded a $500 grant from NWPE. She will use the funds to redesign her classroom using flexible seating equipment such as stability balls, wobble cushions, stack stools, carpet squares, a classroom set of clipboards, and small storage units.

Congratulations to Chloe Lucas, English teacher at Council Jr./Sr. High School in Idaho’s Council School District, on her $500 NWPE Classroom Grant to purchase Kindles and appealing Kindle books to expand the current resources available in the school and city libraries located in her small community.

Recently, Mary Spiker testified in front of the Idaho Senate and the Idaho House Education Committees on the significant challenges faced by teachers in the modern kindergarten classroom. Ms. Spiker is not only Idaho’s 2017 Teacher of the Year, but also an NWPE member. She is involved in the Idaho Council of the International Literacy Association and the Building Level Match Coach program in Pocatello. Read her testimony below to learn what those challenges are, what she and her colleagues did to address the challenges, and what she recommends to better meet students' needs:

Congratulations to Andrea McDougall, a math and geometry teacher at Century High School in Pocatello, ID. Ms. McDougall has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up Grant to purchase classroom materials and equipment to advance student learning within an integrated math instruction curriculum.

Ms. Stacey McFarland, Xavier Charter School teacher in Twin Falls ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up Grant to purchase adaptive seating, specifically including two Kore Wobble Chairs and seven Bouncy Bands, for her second grade classroom.

Mr. Vincent Taylor, a fitness, health, and dance teacher at Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up grant from Northwest Professional Educators to purchase equipment that can be used in all of his classes. The additional equipment will enhance movement and create lifelong skills in all of the subject areas he teaches in grades 3-12.

Ms. Michelle Morrison, NWPE member and kindergarten teacher at Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up Grant from Northwest Professional Educators. Ms. Morrison will use the funds to purchase materials to advance learning with the Scottish Storyline Method which builds on the principle that learning, to be meaningful, has to be memorable, and that by using learners’ enthusiasm for story-making, the classroom, the teacher's role, and learning can be transformed. Through the use of key questions, Storyline takes a topic and allows students to travel through a story as characters reacting to the incidents that are developed as the story unfolds.

Congratulations to award-winning NWPE member Jason George (Presidential Award Winner in Science Education for 2016). Mr. George who is a longtime NWPE member and advocate for teacher professionalism contributed to the state’s effort to update Idaho’s science learning standards. He also recently led his students from Vision Charter School in Caldwell, ID, to a number of awards at the Idaho Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). The awards include an all-expense paid trip to the International Science Fair in Los Angeles for Mr. George and the team consisting of T.J. Herndon, Brooklyn Legg, and Luke Campbell who won first place overall competing in the category of Engineering, specifically in the area of high efficiency rocket nozzles. They won the Airforce Engineering Award, Gold in Category, Best in Category, and Best in Fair.